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Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Speeding Towards Christmas

December is going to fly by like never before. At least that’s what it seems like. Out here we have had a few days with really mild temps above freezing. But whenever that happens this time of the year, it goes along with some misty type of weather. And today it was foggy with a light drizzle all day. But that works out just fine for us, especially today, when we had a trip to Saint John for a doctors appointment for Bea. It sure is better than snow and icy roads.

Before we got to the big city we detoured to St.Andrews as I wanted to see the bus I’m gonna use tomorrow for my road test. It is the same type as a school bus, but red in colour and without the stop arm and a few other features you would find on a school bus. After doing a mock pre-trip inspection which isn’t really any problem, we went inside, and that’s when I was in for a shock. I was flabbergasted to see how incredible primitive these buses are. Apparently no engineer has ever thought of building an ergonomic driver’s workplace as switches are placed rather haphazardly where ever it seemed practical after economic criteria. Instead of having one combination-switch for turn signals, high-beam and wiper/washer, they managed to place everything separately. The wipers on the two halves (!) of the windshield are even governed by separate switches. The diesel engine is so loud that I had a hard time to understand the man showing the bus to me. The entire suspension of this monster is resting on leaf springs front and rear. That type of engineering was used on stage coaches around the beginning of the 20th century. And try to turn a corner in town - the turn radius on these stone age monsters would best require an entire fairground. “Things” like this would have been in common use in Europe right before and after WWII.

Not the actual bus, but just about the same

Well, we are gonna see what happens tomorrow – right?

Yesterday I was busy with a huge fallen spruce tree. It had ripped down the power line to a private property and was resting across the driveway when I started on it. I got the chunks loaded onto the trailer and then…..I had a problem. The driveway was kinda steep and it was soft. Our JEEP has front-wheel drive (no 4X4) and the trailer was heavy. I scraped along with spinning front wheels and just barely made it out of the pit. Whew….

The next tree project is already staked out, as there is another fallen spruce across the Welshpool playground. But don’t worry folks – beaver Peter is coming with his nasty little chainsaw.

3 comments:

Well, when they say school buses are built "like tanks", now you know. There are those who swear they make the best RV ever. "Built to protect little children". That kind of idea.And I suppose that's a wonderful thing, just as long as you don't mind driving a tank. I've driven a couple. I felt blessed that there was power steering. And yes, the location of the switches did seem a bit hap hazard.